THE SIMPLE LIFE ON OUR OZARKS QUAIL FARM

After I retired I wanted to stay busy on our farm. My almost 30 year career was in the hunting & fishing industry, so raising the birds I had hunted for years was a natural for me. Being married to my best friend, wife & help mate is all I could ask for. My wife of 34 years and I love living on our farm and doing the chores it takes to maintain it. We are living a wonderful slow life in our retirement. Our grand daughter is such joy. Having a big garden to feed us, raising bees for honey, loving our pets and no debt. I feel blessed to have enjoyed this country living and sustaining our family through growing our food and simple ways my whole life. I am happy to see others across this great country deciding to live instead of just collecting more. A less-stress farm life is making us very happy.
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Tuesday, January 4, 2011

The Guys from the East Coast are Wanting Birds Again!!

We've had 2 calls so far this week from east coast states looking for lots of quail. They got hit hard by that big snow/ice storm last week and apparently it tore down the flypens and killed thousands of birds. The fellow last night said he lost 25,000 quail. How devastating would that be. Losing $100,000.00 in sales plus the cost of repairs. WOW! He asked me for at least 10,000 birds to help him fill the preserve orders for now. Of course I am not big enough to help him. He was pretty desperate. I really hate that for him and the preserves losing all that hunting business because of lack of quail. I can attest this quail business is very sensitive to disasters with losing a lot of birds really fast. We did find another cabinet incubator yesterday for a good price so we bought it. We should have all our incubating bases covered for awhile. I got last years wild quail numbers report from the conservation department yesterday. Missouri is doing better than some states but we are down a great percentage number from even 10 -15 years ago, let alone from the years of 60's & 70's. They are really making a push for habitat restoration. If you have a farm I hope you will make it quail friendly before they are all gone.